The technology described in this disclosure relates generally to integrated circuits and more particularly to voltage level regulation.
In various fields of semiconductor technology (e.g., memories, microprocessors, complex programmable logic devices, etc.), more and more devices have been designed with core circuitry that operates at low power supply voltages. However, the core circuitry has to interface with other circuitry that operates at higher voltage levels. For example, in a double-date-rate (DDR) memory device, a power supply voltage for an input/output (IO) block is often larger than operating voltages for core or logic transistors to achieve a target bit rate with sufficient signal integrity. Many designs have been implemented to translate the voltages at circuitry interfaces from one level to another.